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I stumbled across a post a few weeks ago that made me so angry. It had a click-bait type headline about The Fall of the Kardashians (or something along those lines). The basic premise of the article was that influencer marketing won’t be nearly as effective now that live streaming is becoming a powerful marketing tool. The author’s thesis was essentially that influencers were inauthentic and since live streaming is an ideal way to show authenticity and be off the cuff, influencers wouldn’t be able to translate into this type of marketing.

The article annoyed me.

Not because I particularly love the Kardashians. Because I don’t. [Although It might be because the writer had featured an unauthorized photo of one of my client’s products.]

But I think, at the heart of it, I was annoyed because smart marketers and business people should never stand around and point out what they don’t like about a tactic or why it will stop working.

Instead, we should all look at why influencer marketing does work and why the Kardashians have made a huge empire and then try to figure out how to replicate that in our own businesses and brands.

I will tell you right now how influencers become savvy and successful. They get to know their audience and they build trust within that audience. This right here is probably one of the reasons the Kardashians and influencers are schooling small businesses in engagement and social media follower retention. It’s why huge brands pay thousands and hundreds of thousands of dollars to influencers to promote their products.

Many businesses simply fail to understand their audience. They make assumptions on what they want or like and then they create content around it and often that content is off the mark. (To stay on the Kardashian theme… let’s just point out the Pepsi commercial).

Influencer marketing is not new but it has been given a twist, thanks to social media. Now anyone can be an influencer. Anyone with an internet connection and some strategy and consistency can start building up a following and create a business by becoming an influencer. But I want to make one thing clear: this is not just some kid throwing up photos whenever they want.

The most successful influencers study their followers. They study their content. They measure what has done well and what has not. They watch for trends on their platforms and in their audiences. They listen to their followers and engage with them. In short, they become marketers of their own brand. And they do it very, very well.

If you want to be really great at social media marketing for your business, you have to think like an influencer. You have to pay attention to your content, your followers and the trends on your platforms.

This goes for every industry, not just product based businesses or businesses aimed at millennials. Every single business in every industry can learn from influencers.

So the next time you see a sponsored Instagram advertisement or Snapchat, don’t immediately roll your eyes. Instead, take a step back and look at what that influencer has created.

Ask yourself, how did they do this well?

What do they do differently?

How can I learn to communicate with my audience so they trust me just as much as they trust their favorite influencer?